


The Dance-Off

by thephilosophah



Series: Peace and blessings, life is tough [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, in wich overwatch parties are chill and the music is adequate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 15:01:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9553745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thephilosophah/pseuds/thephilosophah
Summary: Tracer challenges Genji to a dance battle at an Overwatch party. It's not clear who won.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i made gptp a series... the dream, the goal. my first series! some more to come in the future.  
> you don't have to have read gptp, this is p much completely unrelated

It is, in fact, the first crowded Overwatch event Genji willingly attends. For the closed-off, scared and fallible air he's been projecting, it's a first everyone welcomes, especially him.

Mercy had done a cute little bounce and clap when he asked to attend.

It's not even as crowded as he'd feared; there's fifty, maybe sixty people in the hall when he was expecting about three times that.

The music is loud. Genji's reconstructed ears have, thankfully, volume filters. Frequency-specific, even, if he wants to hear someone speak. There's people dancing, most of them agents, some of them civilian friends. Reinhardt and Commander Reyes are in the quiet side of the room, far from the two shitty speakers a military base could provide.

Athena is metaphorically there, small screen with her logo between the two speakers. Genji isn't sure if she's picking the music or if some human mixed it beforehand. When he got closer to inspect her, he got distracted by the ballons on either side of her emblem.

Mercy comes back from grabbing those drinks, her elbow locked with Jesse's. They both sit on Genji's left. He runs through a number of frequecies to find one that lets him hear them without going deaf again.

"I can hear you now", he says.

"There we go!" Mercy - Angela - goes, takes a sip from her tall drink. "Now say that again, Jesse, now that we're all listening."

"I said, are you gonna drink anything, Genji? It is a party."

"No, I'm fine."

"You can't not have been at a party before."

"I didn't say that! I've probably been to more parties than you can count, cowboy. I'll have you know I know the ultimate hangover cure. And I'm not sharing!"

Jesse pouted, hid the pout behind his glass. "Now that right there is what I call an asshole move."

"I have a record to hold. I wouldn't honor the people who taught me the cure if I didn't."

"What's the record?" Angela asks. With her free hand, she pulls her jacket closed. It's probably a bit cold for the shirt she's wearing.

"Only share with bedmates."

Angela almost does a spittake and so has to hide her laugh behind her hand. Jesse, however, wasn't drinking at that exact moment so he guffaws without a hitch.

"For real, man? And just how many people knew the damn cure?"

"A lot. Anyone could share it if they knew it. I couldn't have been responsible for more than fifteen of them." Genji pauses to let his friends regain control over their respiratory systems. He puts a hand on his chin. "On second thought... no, I lied, we figured the cure out when I was about twenty-two. And it's not like I left a note in every bed I got in, you know? Hell, most of my bedmates all knew each other, now that I think about it, I was one of the last in our friend group to know the cure. I'd say I've taught it to about eight to ten people."

Jesse whistles low, takes a swig. "In three years? That's kind of a lot, how long did those relationships even last?"

"Oh, I didn't really get in relationships if we weren't friends already. And those were kinda, well, casual, you know? My friends were very open. I guess I've never really done the dating thing the way you probably imagine."

"Friend dates with benefits", Angela says with a thoughtful look, swishing her drink. "Sounds nice."

"It was. I was very happy. So were they."

He doesn't mention it, but from the lack of answer he guesses the other two notice the happiness didn't extend to family.

The song changes to one that hits the frequence Genji left unfiltered. Jesse perks up.

"Hey, Lena's fight song!" he says, scans the room for the girl.

She's rapidly approaching the three of them. It's a wonder she doesn't blink.

"Hey guys!" she says. Genji has to open a second frequency to include her high pitch. "Genji, I've never seen you around for parties! Unless you're getting dragged into them, but I can tell when you are. Having fun for once?"

"For once."

"Wanna fight me?"

"What? No, you're cool. I don't want to hurt you."

Angela laughs. "She means a dance fight. A dance-off, if you will."

"People still do those?"

"Lena does."

Genji turns to the bouncy ball that is Lena, offers a bow of his head. "I'll have to decline."

"Aww, come on, love! It'll be fun!"

"Yeah, if you're comfortable in your skin it will be." He shrugs a shoulder, tilts his head to hide in the shrug. "I'm not. I'd rather not dance at all."

"Well fuck that!" Jesse goes, handing his drink to Angela. "I'll fight you, Lena. Let's go before the song ends."

So they do. Angela puts a hand on Genji's shoulder. He offers her a quick visor-light dim of a smile. He then filters out all frequecies, trades the music for a quiet humming.

Like the rest of the room knows, they empty a space for Jesse and Lena's dance-off. They both sway to the hums as they size each other up.

The first to move is Lena; she blinks in Jesse's face and then back, then recalls to the exact same spot. It makes for an impressive lightshow, but not as impressive as the body wave she pulls off right after. She makes like she grabs something from Jesse, twirls, and throws it back. Jesse catches it and shoves it on top of his hat. He holds the hat in place while he does a weird step dance Genji doesn't recognise the style of, but it gets the room cheering so it must be good. Jesse ends it with a wide set of his feet, finally lifts his hat enough to smirk at Lena. He dances to a proper closing pose and offers a deep, theatrical bow, hat coming off his head to almost sweep the floor before it comes to his chest.

There's a pause after that, during which Genji assumes the second verse of the song finishes up before Lena can get in with the third.

She does so by hopping forward and drawing a line with her tiptoe, slow and deliberate and apparently a real owning, judging from Jesse's hat tip. Lena keeps her foot going, swings it around herself, almost pulls of a pirouette - if not for the obvious lack of training, it would've almost seemed smooth. She lands a death drop, blinks to a jump, continues jump-blinking so she doesn't touch the ground for good couple of seconds. When she does, she shimmies her hips and shoulders.

Genji doesn't have a good angle of her face, but from the tilt of her head and the times she's done it before, he guesses she winks at Jesse.

Jesse himself has to start his second turn by dropping on one knee on the line Lena drew. Then both knees, then the other knee - somehow he doesn't look like the repetitive knee-slamming is hurting him at all. Must be all those combat rolls. Instead of standing up he gets on in a squat on his feet, pulls off some ridiculous handwork Genji can't even follow. When Jesse finally stands up, he does so with his thumbs in his belt, framing the golden BAMF, and, as it happens, his crotch. Lena pretends to swoon as she goes closer.

Jesse catches her in a dip. She comes up with a twirl and stretches out holding Jesse's other hand. They're laughing now that they're dancing together, and Genji is confused. Isn't the point of a dance-off that they're on opposite sides? How will they pick a winner if they're dancing together? He opens a frequency to ask Angela but by the time he turns she's already standing up, drinks abandoned in her seat as she joins the other two in dancing.

Lena goes on her tip toes to twirl Angela, Angela dips her and then Jesse and then some random passerby who was unfortunate enough to exist in that spacetime and also turned out to be Captain Amari. The four of them high-five briefly before they continue on dancing together, mingling with the crowd that's already forgotten that there was a dance battle happening.

Now that Genji thinks about it, the dance-offs in the movies never happened with continuously mixed music. There was a song, or two mashed together, so the dancers could end in a dramatic pose.

There'd be no pose in a club if the music never stopped.

 

 


End file.
